He’s one of the most influential people in the world when it comes to global affairs, but one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers refuses to listen to an alleged murder tape that everyone is talking about.

“Let’s start a GoFundMe to help John Bolton learn Arabic,” joked one commenter. “We can send him to an immersion program in Riyadh.”

The audio recording quickly emerged as a key piece of evidence amid conflicting accounts of Khashoggi’s murder at a Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey in October.

Saudi officials initially claimed Khashoggi left the consulate before later saying he was killed in a botched operation aimed at forcibly bringing the writer back to the kingdom.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about the plot to kill Khashoggi, prompting calls by many in Congress for the US to take a tougher stance with the key Gulf ally.

Mr Trump has indicated the US will not further punish Saudi Arabia. The President has said the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its Crown Prince ordered the killing.

In a statement last week on the possibility the Crown Prince ordered the killing, Mr Trump said “maybe he did, maybe he didn’t”.

Saudi Attorney-General Saud al-Mojeb said that investigators came to that conclusion after evidence presented by Turkish officials as part of the two nations’ probe into the killing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan frequently references the audio recording in an attempt to drum up pressure on Saudi Arabia, a key regional foe.

“The recording is truly atrocious,” Mr Erdogan was reported as saying in comments published in pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak. “In fact, when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recording he was so shocked that he said, ‘This one probably took heroin. Only someone who took heroin would do it’.”